THE SCIENCE OF HAPPINESS 



all this you have denied yourself if you have not learned 

 the art of friendly searching of the printed page. It 

 is not too much to say that you cannot hope to learn 

 to think if you do not first learn to read by which I do 

 not mean merely learn to turn the pages as a task; a 

 reader is not one who merely knows the words; he is 

 one who goes to the printed page with eager avidity. 

 Nothing is so stimulative as contact with great minds, 

 and he who denies himself that contact cannot hope to 

 develop his own mind to the full extent of its possibili- 

 ties. 



You have heard it said, perhaps, that Herbert Spen- 

 cer, the foremost thinker of modern times, read but 

 little. Do not be deceived by such a statement. Open 

 the pages of Spencer's books; read First Principles, 

 The Principles of Biology, of Psychology, of Sociology; 

 turn then to the ponderous Descriptive Sociology made 

 under his supervision ar ^ you will not need to be 

 told that the man who produced these works was a 

 reader as well as a thinker. 



When Spencer said that he did not read he meant 

 that he was not much versed in the literature of philos- 

 ophy or in any field of popular classics, and that he 

 virtually ignored the current literature of his day. 



But these were not the things that his mind needed. 

 He had thought out the great all-encompassing prin- 

 ciple which he believed could be applied as a unifying 

 thought throughout the entire domain of human ideas. 

 To prove his case, to elaborate his philosophy, he needed 

 to make his mind a vast storehouse of tangible facts. 

 He did not so much need the thoughts of the ancients 



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